


Survival Value

by Shazrolane



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Deaf Clint Barton, Gen, Non-superpowered AU, Starts out entirely with Clint, Work In Progress, probably, the others show up eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-21 06:04:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 23,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shazrolane/pseuds/Shazrolane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Circus headliner Clint Barton, aka The Amazing Hawkeye, is alone and on the run in a world that's gone to hell and zombies. He's got no back up, no team, no supplies and no bow.</p><p>Oh, and he's deaf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shadows and Flame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kisleth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kisleth/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Those Who Run](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/25129) by flyingisenough. 



> Thanks to Boom Whist for beta work. I've edited the work after beta input so any mistakes are purely my fault!

Chapter 1 Shadows and Flame  
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…It has no survival value, rather it is one of those things that give value to survival. ~ C. S. Lewis

Clint had woken up with a start when the ancient camper started to shudder and shake. He looked out the window. All he could see was darkness punctuated by flames. He grabbed his bow but before he could sling the quiver over his back someone – no, something - appeared in the open door. It looked like a person, but with blood red eyes, grey skin with purple and blue bruising all over, and a horrible, rotted smell. The creature’s eyes locked on him almost immediately and it rushed at him. He got off one arrow into the chest but that didn't even slow the thing down as it staggered toward him.

He smacked the reaching arms away with his bow, but with the walls of the camper so close he couldn't get in a good swing. He was able to keep the bony fingers from grabbing him but it just kept coming forward. He jabbed the tip of the bow into the monster’s face. The head rocked back then returned to its normal position, the mouth open hungrily. The jab of his bow to its face had actually torn some skin and muscle, which hung down in a flap across the corner of its mouth, but it made no acknowledgement of the wound. He kicked out and broke its knee, which caused the rotted thing to stumble for a brief moment, then it pulled itself up on the other leg and continued to move forward, dragging the injured leg.  
He did everything he could think of to keep the nightmare at a distance, but it was a losing fight. Injuries that would have quickly disabled him only slowed it down for seconds. This thing also didn’t fight like any human opponent he’d ever faced. When a normal person would have dodged or ducked and then thrown a blow in return, this creature simply took the hit and tried to grab him. It also had a longer reach, forcing him to retreat more often than not. He only had room for a few stumbling steps in retreat before he hit the tiny table and fell, his back landing on the table and his feet losing purchase on the ground. It leapt onto him crushing him down and trapping both his arms and his bow. The combination of its weight and the putrid smell drove his breath out of his body.

He braced one leg on the back of the bench and shoved with all of his might, managing to turn them just enough to allow him to slither down onto the floor, abandoning his bow in the process. He left his quiver behind as well as he raced to the door. In a practiced move, he grabbed the edge of the door frame and used his momentum to swing himself up to grab the top of the roof. He flipped his feet over his head in a move he had learned from the acrobats and rolled up onto the roof just as his attacker burst out of the door, looking for him. His vertical escape seemed to have confused it, and it looked around for a bit before joining others who were eating something on the ground. He cursed silently when he saw his bow tangled around one of the monster’s arms.

It seemed that despite all of the precautions they had taken, the rotters had over run the camp. Clint didn't know if there had been an alarm call but if there was one he'd missed it. His brother was supposed to wake him. The feeling of betrayal washed over him and he silently cursed himself. A part of him, the little brother that had always looked up to Barney, worried and wondered where his brother was, wanted to go looking. But the larger part of him, the part that had seen foster parent after foster parent walk away, school after school label him incorrigible, that part told him that he had been cut loose once again. 

If the sentries were gone he was fucked. Either the rotters were getting smart and had snuck up on them, or the camp guards had been overwhelmed along with the animals. Ever since the disaster outside Milwaukee they'd started tying the dogs and big cats on the camp perimeter, making the predators earn their keep since it was getting harder and harder to feed them. Most of the time the animals just made enough noise to warn the armed sentries, but there had a few memorable fights where the cats had proven their worth. They'd lost most of them and two of the dogs, but it had helped to keep the humans alive as they struggled to find a permanent camp, heading ever further south to avoid the coming winter.

In addition to the sentries, there were always armed patrols within the camp. Their ability to work together and organize had always been the big advantage the circus folk had that had allowed them to survive longer than most other groups. They were organized, used to working together and planning out logistics and supplies for moving and for long camps. Everyone was used to pulling their weight by performing multiple roles and they already knew who their leaders were. They made and practiced plans and on the occasions when they had had to use them, things worked out for the most part.

Now all he saw was chaos. Just like spotlights in the circus, the flames light some things brightly while leaving everything else in shadow. The two elephants were rampaging on the other side of the circled campers with no handlers in sight. The horse trailer was overturned and the cook tent was going up in flames. The smell of burning canvas, wood and petroleum drowned out the usual camp smell of manure. He saw one of the clowns get pulled down from the roof of her vehicle while the strongman fell to an attack from behind. What Clint didn't see was any organized resistance, nor was there any trace of his brother.

He stayed low, laying down on the rickety roof to minimize the likelihood of being seen. He harbored no illusions about the safety of his perch, however. It wouldn't be long before he was seen and suffered the same fate as the clown. He looked desperately for a path of escape, but all he saw were the other trailers, most of them lower to the ground than his ancient vehicle. They were pulled into a circle well away from the trees, to give them best possible line of sight so they wouldn’t be caught by surprise. That had been the plan at any rate. Now it simply isolated the campers from any escape into the trees. 

As he saw it, he had two choices. Flight didn’t seem to be an option, so that left fight or freeze. Everyone he saw fighting was quickly succumbing to the stronger numbers and sheer unstoppable ferocity of their attackers. He was better trained and more skilled with his weapon, but even if he had it, it had proven to be almost worthless. A shot to the chest would drop a normal person but these just shrugged it off. Fighting in the open would give him more of a chance than he’d had back in the camper, but it would also allow them to surround him. He also knew that the old recurve bow wouldn’t sustain too many hits before it broke. 

The other choice was to get back into the camper, lock the door behind him and hide, hoping he wasn't discovered. Eventually the rotters would move on, after they had killed and eaten everyone else in his circus family. The family of freaks and loners and good people who had taken in the two brothers when no one else would. All he would have to do would be to cower in his hideout and wait for the rotters to run out of living food. That was assuming that they wouldn't smell him out and rip through the flimsy walls of the camper.

Either way, his choice sucked.


	2. Liberty Horses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint's not the only one looking to escape the remains of the circus.

Chapter 2 Liberty Horses  
Let every nation know…that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty. ~ John F. Kennedy

There were times when making a decision, ANY decision, was better than doing nothing, but this didn’t seem to be one of them. He’d had other situations when he knew that the rest of his life was going to be influenced by his choice but it had never been so clearly life and death before. He looked around desperately for something that would give some sort of advantage.

 

Salvation came in the form of death. The rotting people had trapped the liberty horses and pulled down one of them. From what little Clint could see, they were eating it alive. Two of the other horses were tangled in their picket ropes and the last one was milling about nervously, trapped by a tangled mass of fallen poles and canvas. There was just enough room for the free horse to avoid the obstacles but it was panicking and couldn't find the escape on its own. Clint had taken care of the horses for most of their lives, and they knew and trusted him. He'd led these four out of a tent fire two years ago, so he had reason to think that the panicked horse would respond to him if he could just get to it.

 

He waited for a moment when none of the rotters seemed to be looking in his direction, then he ran across his camper and jumped to the roof of the next camper. The roof held, and so did the next one. His luck ran out on old man Carroll's camper.

 

He landed face first inside the trailer, his arms and face scratched and ripped from the jagged edges of the hole he'd torn in the roof. He got to his feet, his head still spinning, and stumbled to the door. He wrenched it open only to see at least four back lit silhouettes turn and start moving towards him. He slammed the door and threw the bolt, thanking all the deities he'd never believed in that Carroll was a paranoid, cantankerous old cuss who'd installed extra locks on everything.

 

Something started pounding on the door, denting the thin aluminum but not breaking the reinforcement that had been welded on. Several of the others had followed and were moving to surround the camper. He couldn’t break out through the circle of creepers, he had to get them all in one location. Clint moved up to the driver’s seat and rolled the window down, sticking his arm out to get their attention. They came at a run. He started to roll the window back up but his luck struck again and the window stuck halfway. He rolled out of the seat and scrambled into the back.

 

There were three still pummeling on the door. He turned, used his foot to kick out a window on the opposite side, and leaped through head first, quickly turning his fall into a roll. He ended up on his feet and started running immediately. Halfway to the horses, he turned and looked behind him, and immediately wished he hadn’t. 

The flickering flames made the darkness in between the fires blacker than any night he had ever experienced. What brief glimpse he was able to get showed the fighting was almost over, and he was on the losing side. And just make things even better, there was a whole train of them following him. He was leading them straight towards the only chance he had of escape. There was already the crowd of them feeding on the downed horse. He was going to have a hell of time getting through them as it was, but bringing reinforcements to his own enemies would seal his fate.

His lungs felt like they were going to burst and he really hoped the liquid running down his ribs was sweat and not blood. He didn’t have much left in him; soon he’d slow down and they’d catch him. Despite this, he swung wide. His pursuers were able to cut the corner and gain that much more on him. One way or another, this was going to be over very soon. 

He came up on the other side of the twisted mass of canvas, rope and poles. Climbing slowed him down enough that they caught up to him, the intermittent wind bringing him brief snatches of sulfur and the sickly sweet smell of death. He chanced one more look back, and terror gave his legs the extra push to jump up and onto the collapsed tent. He felt the canvas being pulled down as they clawed at it. He pushed himself to the absolute limit, his legs and arms burning from the effort and finally made it to the top, gasping for breath.

The crowd in the front had grown so large that they could no longer all fit around the downed horse. They had moved on to the two that were tangled, gnawing and ripping at them with claws and teeth. One of the horses went down as he watched, its legs kicking out and becoming entangled in its own guts. 

Clint knew in that moment that there was no way in hell he was going to die like that.

He slithered down the canvas, careful to land a little bit away from the one loose horse. He walked up to it, humming. He hoped it was a soothing sound to the horse; he had often done it around them. The horse struck out with a foreleg once, but only the once. He looped his belt around its neck and then jumped on. The horse shivered and danced in place nervously but answered to his hands and shifting weight. He backed it up as close to the tent as he dared, then set his heels to it. The powerful body dropped down as the horse launched itself towards a break in the ranks of the horrors. 

As soon as the horse came close, the creatures came after it, reaching towards both of them. Clint kicked out, his boots knocking away the hands as they grabbed. Many of the fingers showed bone where the flesh had rotted or been pulled off. He swallowed his terror down and shoved it into a tiny box inside his mind.  
The horse never faltered in its stride and soon had them out of the surrounding ring. He guided it through the camp and out onto the roadside. As soon as they were clear, he slowed it to a trot and then a walk. They were both breathing in huge gasps, gulping in air. 

After hours, they came to an open area of grass next to the road. Clint guided the horse over a slight rise, hoping it would shield them from the sight of anything, or anyone, traveling down the road. Not daring to make himself too comfortable, he laid down on its back, his hands wrapped around his belt on its neck and his head pillowed on his arms. The horse grazed for a short time, but it quickly gave it to exhaustion and quieted to sleep. He followed soon after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm planning to update once a week, so look for a new chapter on Sunday night. Constructive criticism welcomed.


	3. Fight Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suburbs, a garage, and a tree.

Chapter Three Fight - Flight  
The masculine energy was about survival. The male was the hunter who risked his life and had to be in the fight-flight mode. ~ Deepak Chopra

In the morning, he spent several hours gathering bitter wild blackberries while the horse grazed. While it made him feel better, it didn't come close to filling his belly. He would have to find some more substantial food soon, and water was an even bigger priority. The horse led him to a small creek, running clear and cool. He had no way to purify the water or to carry any, so he and the horse drank their fill before setting out once more, with him crossing his fingers that he wouldn't get sick.

By mid afternoon they were both tired again and Clint was walking to help rest the horse. As they rounded a gradual bend in the road, he saw a small housing development. He headed in that direction, the horse ambling along beside him.

The first house was locked. He left the horse grazing in the backyard where the high wooden privacy fence would conceal it and climbed onto the porch roof. From there he broke out a window and moved into the house.

The house felt eery. The owners had obviously taken everything of value and left. There was no food, all the blankets were gone and the gun case empty. The second house was much of the same, but at least he was able to scavenge some clothesline.

After two hours or so, all he had to show was the clothesline, a packet of powdered soup mix, a multi tool that included a tiny hammer, and a water bottle. Going house by house was taking too long and not giving him any results. He mounted the horse and went exploring. As the Sun was starting to set he hit the jackpot. One house had large water catchment containers at each corner, a fenced yard for the horse and a large garden. From the chimney and and the stockpile of wood there was at least a good sized fireplace, if not a wood burning stove. The windows on the ground floor were covered with thick plywood. This place was well worth the time to investigate.

One of the water containers was already rigged with a hose to fill a trough. There wasn't much grass left for the horse but now at least it could drink after walking in the hot sun all day. From the small shed, it looked like the family used to have goats and chickens. After a short search, he found the chickens and their nest under the porch. He gathered up a bunch of eggs in a bucket he found and brought them onto the porch. If he could get a fire going in the fireplace he could scramble the eggs and finally get a hot meal.

He decided to spend the remaining daylight making a secure shelter for both of them. There would be plenty of time to cook the eggs and explore the house after dark. He followed the driveway around to the back of the house. The smell alerted him before he turned the corner. The corpse of a man lay face down in the driveway.

Clint pulled his shirt up to cover his nose and mouth as he walked past the corpse and entered the garage. After a few minutes of searching, he found several tarps. Grabbing one and a shovel, he went back outside and dragged the corpse off the driveway. Now where to leave it? Too close to the house and it might attract rotters. In the road - same problem and it would probably spook the horse. After some thought, he left it in a backyard a few houses down.

The garage doors were already reinforced, so would definitely help. He could leave the horse in the garage and not have to bring it into the house. There were a ton of old fashioned hand tools and a few tools that ran on batteries that might still have a charge. He'd seen a few solar panels on the roof when he was looking around the outside. If they were still working he might be able to charge up the tools and be able save himself some work.

Some reusable grocery bags caught his eye and he decided to harvest what he could from the garden in the last remaining light. The corn didn't have any ears yet, but there were tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers and potatoes. He would have a feast tonight! 

With only a few remaining minutes of twilight, Clint started exploring the house. Sure enough, there was a wood burning stove, set up to vent out of the chimney. The house smelled musty and sour with the smell of the rotting corpse outside pervading throughout. He sat his bucket of eggs and bag of vegetables on the kitchen counter and started searching, but there was no food in the kitchen at all. Shelves that had been built throughout the house were empty. There was a large cache of rifles scattered throughout the house, with boxes of bullets set next to each one.

Downstairs was a bust, so moved upstairs. For years to come, that decision both comforted and haunted him. The first room was a child's bedroom. The second was a storage room, with shelves of food and water. And five rotters that immediately came after him.

The door had opened inwards to the room just past one rotter that was already reaching for him. He had no chance to shut it as he stumbled back, almost falling over the small railing next to the stairs. As he bolted down them, he felt hands grabbing his plaid shirt, pulling him back into reach. He twisted his arms behind him and slipped out of the shirt, losing his balance in the process.

He rolled to all fours and scrambled for the open garage door, tripping over the piles of tools and supplies he'd gathered. There was more clattering as he exited the garage. He ran for the fence and vaulted over it in one motion. It wouldn't stop the monsters but hopefully they wouldn't be able to navigate the fence as quickly. The house across the street had a rope swing hanging from a tree branch. He climbed up the rope. Before he made it to the top, a hand brushed at his foot. He kicked out which set him to swinging wildly.

His arms were burning but the stench and growling of the creatures trying to eat him gave him all the incentive he needed to finish the climb. One of them grabbed the rope but didn't seem to have the coordination needed to climb up it. As soon as it let go of the rope, Clint pulled up the stiff nylon line and used it as a safety harness to tie himself onto the branch.

Darkness fell and the temperature started dropping. Dead people wandered around the base of the tree, moaning and reaching for him, seeking to be his death. Instead of a warm bed and food, he had a branch and a rope already digging into his flesh. He'd always told himself that any day that he woke up, wasn't that bad of a day. But if this was the best he could look forward to for the rest of his life, he wasn't certain he could do it. 

For the first time since his parents died, Clint Barton wept.


	4. Groupies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His train of walkers followed as if he was some apocalyptic pied piper.

Chapter 4 Groupies  
We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival. ~ Winston Churchill

They were still there in the morning, shuffling around the base of his tree and staring up at him. He found a place where he could swing from one branch into a branch of another tree. But they just followed along. Their slow, shambling walk was easily able to keep up with the acrobatics he needed to move from one tree to the next, and they never seemed to tire.

They followed him throughout the day. Late in the afternoon, he found a small creek, sunk deep in its bed. The banks were at least 4 feet and steep. None of the branches bridges the gap. He'd have to either follow the stream or drop down to ground. The stinkers had shown themselves to be uncoordinated, falling often over obvious things such as fallen logs. And they didn't learn from each other's mistakes - every single one would stumble over the same log. Maybe this would stop them.

He found a good spot, with a clear landing area and a climbable tree close by. He accounted for as many variables as he could, and did everything he could to make things go in his favor. He gathered himself, took a deep breath, and jumped. He didn't make the top of the bank on the other side and had to scramble. He could hear them rushing up behind. The bank was crumbling under his hands, clay and rocks falling over his hands. He made it to the top, pulling his upper body onto level ground just as one of the monsters grabbed at his ankle. He unzipped his boot and relinquished it to the rotter, wriggling his foot out of the rotten fingers.

They were too close for him to use the tree he had scoped out earlier. He had to get some distance. He ran up the hill and into the next subdivision. He had a head start, but not much of one. None of the trees were good for a fast climb, so he kept running until he found a house with a child's wooden swing set. He ran up the ladder and onto the thick beam that held the swings. Running down the beam, his feet were inches from the grasp of the dead walkers. From there he was able to jump onto a branch. Another branch, another jump, and he was on the porch roof.

It wasn't flat, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it was less steeply sloped than the rest of the roof. He walked to one end of the porch and banged his fist against the roof, goading his faithful group of followers to move down to that end, grabbing for him. Then he ran for the other side and ripped down the American flag that was hanging from a pole. It would do in a pinch as a blanket. That, of course, was when it started to rain. He moved to a small overhang caused by the complex roof and wrapped the blanket around himself.

There was no sleep and little rest that night on the rain slicked roof. At least he wasn't thirsty anymore. Morning found him shivering and probably hypothermic. Peering over the roof, he saw that some of the rotters had wandered away during the night, but about half of them were still there. He slowly walked around the edge of the roof, moving his arms and trying to drive out the cold that sunk into his bones and muscles. His train of walkers followed as if he was some apocalyptic pied piper. The hour it took to warm up at least gave him time to think.

He pounded on the roof and waved his arms until he had the attention of every creature that he could see. He moved along the edge of the roof, careful to always stay within sight. They followed him into the fenced backyard and around into a corner, where the fence met the house. He continued walking around the roof, leaving them trapped against the fences. Any intelligent opponent would easily backtrack through the still open gate and rejoin him in the front, heck most of the dogs in the circus would have figured it out. But they stayed in the corner, shoving each other and moaning. He dropped out of sight over the ridge of the roof and stayed wherein he was for a few moments, making certain they wouldn’t be able to figure out the simple escape route of the open backyard gate.

A large branch was laying on the roof. It would be easy to use it to break a window. But he was pretty certain that he had seen some shadows against the curtains, and they were moving. He moved along the roof until he could peek in through a window, in a corner where the curtain had been pulled slightly back. A dead woman wandered aimlessly through the bedroom.

He debated with himself for a long time before deciding that scavenging was really his best option. He dropped to the ground, mindful to stay out of sight of the groupies in the back yard. He slunk around until he was able to reach the gate. He quickly pulled it shut, praying all the time that it wouldn't make a sound to betray him.

With the immediate threat contained, at least for a short while, he climbed onto the roof of one of the cars parked in the driveway and gave the garage a good look. It seemed clear, so he kicked in the door and started looking for anything he could take with him. Sisal twine wasn't the cordage he preferred, but he was firmly into 'Beggars can't be choosers' territory, so he took it, along with a small hatchet, a hammer, some nails and a ladder.

He quickly secured the ladder between the roof and the tree as a bridge. He didn't want to take the chance that any of the shamblers could climb a ladder so he planned to keep the swing set beam-to tree branch-to roof pathway, but with the ladder bridge he wouldn't have to jump.

With the hatchet, he chopped his way into the attic. A quick glance assured him that he was alone in the space. He nailed the pull down ladder in the up and closed position and pulled up the string. The house itself was probably infested, but at least now he had a place to get out of the rain that started up again just as night fell. Now that he was dry, warm and as safe as he'd been since this started, the hunger that had become his constant companion moved to the forefront of his thoughts but he did his best to ignore it. Tomorrow would be another chance to eat.


	5. An Interest in Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer.

Chapter 5 An Interest in Life   
All that is really necessary for survival of the fittest, it seems, is an interest in life, good, bad or peculiar. ~ Grace Paley

The next morning, Clint found an apple tree. The apples were tiny and half of them had been nibbled on by squirrels, but it was easy food, so he ate several and gathered more for later.

He checked in on the rotters in the backyard. So far the wooden privacy fence was holding, but he had no delusions that it would hold if they really started pushing on it. If he intended to keep them locked up, he would have to reinforce the fence, or find a different solution.

Time to go exploring. If he could make it back to the prepper's house, his chances of survival would increase dramatically. He'd leave this house as another refuge, hopefully one in a network spaced throughout the neighborhoods.

He'd had food, and water, and even gotten some sleep. He was doing better than he had since he'd woken up in that trailer. A large part of that was finally feeling a sense of security. Food and water were definitely priorities, but safety came first. He needed to set up a method of travel that would always give him a method of escape.

He loaded his cargo pockets with the little apples and spent the afternoon rigging ropes through the trees and hammering boards into tree trunks to make primitive ladders. He made a lunch of apples and water from the creek, then kept working. By the evening, he'd made it halfway to his target house. And there was no more denying the fact that he was about to be very, very sick. He had the choice of spending the night tied to a tree, heading an hour back to his safe house, or making for the prepper house and hoping it was clear.

Clint cursed everyone and everything he could think of, and then made his choice. He made his way to the ground and did his best to hurry back to the safe house. His best wasn’t at all good, though. The trip took twice as long as it should have, and it was easily the most miserable two hours of his life, with his body trying to eject the toxins through every orifice possible. The last hour was spent traveling through the dark, forcing himself to keep stumbling on through the cramps that doubled him over. If he hadn't rigged the ladder bridge he never would have made it into the attic. As it was, he only slept inside because there was nothing left in him to foul his living space.

He spent the entire next day recovering. The thirst was almost as bad as the sickness been yesterday, but he had learned that lesson the hard way. Never again would he drink water from that creek without boiling it first. He could get liquid from the apples, but his brain had decided that it was the apples that made him so sick. Even the thought of eating them made him nauseous. He found a shady spot on the roof, laid back, and endured.

The next day he headed back towards the prepper's house. The journey that had taken him all day while building in the treetops and two hours wracked with illness took slightly less than an hour today. It would have been even faster, but he was slowed by the lack of a boot.

The horse was gone from the yard. Clint hadn't realized how much he was hoping to find a familiar creature until he realized that he was alone. He swallowed down the lump in his throat and approached the house cautiously, his hatchet in hand.

He made sure the path from the door to the outside was clear, then took several deep breaths and slowly entered the house. His heart was pounding so strongly that it felt as if it was going to tear itself out of his chest. Each time he opened a door, he felt himself hyperventilating. The hatchet felt as if it was going to slip through his sweaty palms. By the time he knew the house was clear, he felt as tired as the day he had to run for his life. He locked and bolted the door, ate the vegetables he had left on the counter the last time he was here, and fell asleep on the couch.

The next morning he fired up the wood stove, cooked the eggs for the first hot meal he'd had in five days and used some water from a trough to wash. Those two simple actions made him feel for the first time as if he had a chance of surviving. Up until now, he had merely been not dying. Now that he had achieved that, he wasn’t going to lose it. It was time to make plans and make a life for himself.

He had to secure his base. The fence was a start, but at only four feet it wouldn't stop them. He didn't want to find enough fence for the whole acre, but he had to protect the garden, the water and the chickens, so it was probably in his best interests. There was the creek - if he could secure a path to that it would give him water even without rain (after being boiled!), and it would give him water for bathing that wouldn't use his drinking water.

He needed rope, hammer and nails, boards, wire cutters, as much fencing as he could drag from neighboring houses. And he needed new boots, which were probably the most critical need. 

Best to start with where he was. Clint searched the house methodically, moving all of the treasures he found into the living room. There was a multi-tool, several first aid kits that he could leave throughout his planned tree top walkways, and some fire starters. And in the master bedroom, he found the jackpot. An open wall safe held several rifles, the closet had boots that were too big but still wearable, and tucked into a corner of the closet, he found three bows and close to four dozen arrows. 

Clint Barton almost never laughed out loud. But with a bow in his hand, he finally felt complete. He could do this. And so for the first time years, the sound of his laughter filled a room.


	6. Simple Pleasures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint goes from existing to surviving. He slept each night in a comfortable bed and woke with a sense of purpose and relative safety. Relative was the important word.

Chapter 6 Simple Pleasures  
Our pleasures were simple – they included survival. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

The next day, after six day of living on plants or nothing, Clint brought down a squirrel within 20 minutes with the bow. He skinned and butchered it with one of the knives that he had found during his search of the house. He made a small fire outside in a decorative fire pit and roasted the squirrel. It was the first meat he'd had in days, and definitely the most calories he'd had since waking up in the middle of the apocalyptic scene at the circus. He felt as if he could feel the energy and strength spreading out from the meat in his belly to his whole body.

Over the next month, Clint went from surviving moment to moment, to planning ahead for the winter. He laboriously dragged sections of chain link fencing and both metal and wooden poles from other houses to increase the height of the existing fence. While exploring in his search for materials, he made some important discoveries.

In order to get any flat ground in the hilly terrain, builders had often dug into steep slopes. One house particular house gave him an idea. The house and yard had been built on a hillside, with the garage below the house. The driveway had been dug into the hill, with tall retaining walls on both sides of the driveway. Posts and boards from wooden fences and metal siding sheds, barns and outbuildings gave him material to build a fence and gate across the front, giving him a sturdy holding pen. A very long dog tie out gave him cable and a runner that he strung between two trees to make a zip line running over the pen.

He didn't like to spend the time, calories or ammunition to fight the walkers if he didn't have to, and to be honest he still wasn't convinced that the walkers could be killed. With this set up, he could run up to the zipline and use it to cross over the pit. Any of the stinks that were after him should fall down into the pit. It would give him the ability to hold them indefinitely. He installed an escape ladder and made certain that the gate was still functional and swung freely, just in case he fell down into the pit.

A nearby bakery didn't yield any food, but it did give him salt and some spices. He pulled up the boards from the floors and walls and used them to make as much of an elevated path through the trees as he could. Boards, ladders and rope bridges stretched from tree to tree to rooftop across as much of the neighborhood as he could manage. There were some days where he never touched the ground.

He dried the vegetables from the garden and the apples from the tree. Most houses yielded little in the way of food but he gathered what he could. A can here, a packet of dried soup there, bit by bit it all added up. In addition, he constantly scavenged cordage of any sort, nails and screws - anything that might be useful. He also collected quite a lot of pre-cut firewood.

He added to his flock of chickens, after finding some half grown chicks wandering around another house. Catching and carrying them home, stuffed into reusable grocery bags, had been an experience. He was pretty sure they had made a racket, since he was found and followed by more of the walkers than usual. He had to take the chickens with him over the zip line to prevent the stinking things from following him to his base. Increasing his flock seemed worth it, though. Roosters could be eaten and the hens would give him eggs. With them roaming freely in his large yard and in the woods across the creek, he didn't need to give them much in the way of food.

The bow he discovered was a huge part of his new found optimism. He was able to take down squirrels, rabbits and doves regularly, and once he even got a deer. He cooked and ate the organ meat and spent days drying and smoking the meat and packing it in as much salt as he could find in the bakery and houses.

Between the prepper supplies and what he was able to gather and preserve, Clint was beginning to think that he had a chance of surviving the winter. Yeah, there were setbacks, like the morning he opened the chicken coop to find one of the chicks dead and a large snake curled up on top of the nest box. The chicken was still warm and the snake wasn't venomous, so he cooked and ate the chicken. He put the snake in a box and ate it the week after.

After breakfast (leftovers from dinner), he worked hard every day, improving his fences and boardwalks. The wall around his house was now close to eight feet tall and much of it was sheathed in sheet metal, hiding his livestock as well as himself. His aerial pathways allowed him to sit or lie down silently and watch as the rotting dead walked underneath him. He'd tried to kill some of them, but arrows just stuck in them without seeming to cause any damage to them. The arrows certainly didn't stop them. Once he was able to pin a rotter to a tree with arrow. It stayed stuck to the tree for three weeks, giving a macabre landmark, until one morning he saw its arm, still held to the tree by the arrow, but the rest of it was gone.

In the evenings he cooked and ate his bigger meal, and then planned out what he would do the next day. It kept him busy, gave him a purpose and made his survival a little bit easier each day. He slept each night in a comfortable bed and woke with a sense of purpose and relative safety.

Relative was the important word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really want to thank everyone who has left kudos and comments. I almost didn't post this, because I wasn't certain that anyone would want to read it. It's been difficult to find time to force myself to write, but every kudo and comment has helped to turn this from something I feel I *have* to do, into something I *want* to do. You've made this a lot of fun, and I greatly appreciate it!


	7. Genetic Needs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We are driven by … genetic needs: survival, love and belonging... ~ William Glasser

Chapter 7 Genetic Needs 

We are driven by … genetic needs: survival, love and belonging... ~ William Glasser

Clint didn't have a calendar, but judging from the way the days were getting cooler and some nights were down right cold, he was guessing it was October, or thereabouts. He'd seen a house several streets over that had pumpkins growing, so he set out to see if they were ripe. Roasted pumpkin, pumpkin seeds, and hey, maybe one for a jack o' lantern, of sorts.

Of course, his plans were ruined by a small group of stinkers, the wind blowing their stench his way and warning him. He made for his nearest rooftop haven and then proceeded to lead them along to his pit corral. On the way, he saw another group cross the main road about two miles down. He cursed under his breath. The pit was getting close to full and soon he'd have to start spending time on scouting out a new location and building the fences to hold them, as well as building boardwalks there. That meant a lot of time scavenging more wood and rope and nails. Well, it would give him something to do during the winter, when he didn't have any crops to tend or harvest.

He got the newest arrivals into the pit and ensured that fence was holding and the gate was still functional. Then he headed back for the pumpkins. On the way, he noticed that the group he had spotted earlier was closer. He'd have to lay low and let this group pass.

His plans for the next day were discarded when a deer wandered under his boardwalk to the creek. He got off a shot but the doe jumped at exactly the wrong moment and the arrow didn't hit in the heart as he had aimed it. He was pretty sure it was hit in the lungs, however, so he set off in pursuit, keeping in mind the group of walkers he'd seen yesterday.

He tried to stay to his aerial paths as much as possible, but the doe wasn't cooperating. She jumped a fence into a backyard. As soon as he made it onto the roof of the house, she doubled back and jumped over the fence on her way out. As soon as he crossed the creek, she ran back the other way. She found every patch of poison ivy, every blackberry thicket, circled one house and jumped back and forth over the creek so many times he eventually just trudged down the creekbed, soaking his boots. She end up collapsing almost under the boardwalk he had shot her from. And of course, that was when he saw something moving in the woods.

Clint broke into a run. He wrapped his rope around one of the doe's hind legs and threw the other end of the rope up and over the boardwalk. Then he sprinted for his nearest ladder. He made it into the safety of the trees and only then took a moment to catch his breath. His deer was still lying on the forest floor -better to lose it to the creepers than to lose his life, but he’d rather not lose it at all. He walked out on the boards and started hauling the deer up, careful to never become overbalanced enough that he might fall. Injuries were not something he could afford in his current state. 

He got the deer up and safely tied off to a higher branch, and breathed a sigh of relief. Now he just had to figure out how to get the damned thing back home. As he considered his options, he caught another glimpse of something moving. Two people ran into view, pursued by a small group of rotters. 

People.

Clint froze for a moment, then made a lightning fast decision. He grabbed his hammer and banged it on a branch close by. The two people, a man and a woman, had paused momentarily to look for options when they seemed to hear his noises and looked up. He beckoned them to follow him and made his way to his rope ladder. The two started to climb as he unslung his bow and grabbed some arrows from his special quiver that held only red painted arrows.

As soon as an arrow touched contaminated flesh, it got painted red and moved into the rotter quiver, never to be used for food hunting again. He used these arrows to slow and distract the stinkers coming after the people. As he released at one rotter, it stumbled. The arrow meant to pin it to a tree instead hit the skull. Instead of bouncing off the hard bone, getting stuck or deflecting, the arrow penetrated the bone that must have been softened by rotting. 

And the walker dropped like a marionette with its strings cut. Clint was struck motionless at the revelation, then systematically turned to exterminating as many of the rotters as he could. He picked off as many as he could with his remaining arrows as the couple made their way up the ladder and into the safe haven he had built. 

The two looked at each other for a moment before nodding at each other and then turning to Clint with smiles. He felt a moment of uneasiness but pushed it down. Interacting with others had always been tricky, especially people who were hearing. Before, his brother Barney had helped to bridge the communication but now he didn’t even have paper and pencil.

He wanted to get them to safety, but he needed the meals and energy and protein that his deer represented. He was torn as to what he should do, when the man of the pair stepped up (literally) and started talking.

Clint shook his head ‘No’ and pointed to his ears, then shook his head ‘No’ again. The woman got a look of understanding and pulled the man back, talking to him and pointing at Clint. Clint pointed at the deer and mimed cutting it up, then carrying it. The woman talked some more, then the man pointed at the deer, at Clint, and then the two of them, then mimed walking. Clint smiled and nodded, then set about field dressing and quartering the deer. When he was finished, he shared out as much of the meat as he could and left the rest hanging. He’d have to come back for it. 

He led them through his tree top maze until he made it back to his home. He felt pride at his accomplishment of having a safe base, but at the same time he felt shy and uncertain about allowing strangers into his sanctuary. He led them onto the back porch, where he did much of his food prep and cooking, and put his load down. He gestured for his two guests to sit, but when he headed back to the walkway, the man came with him. Clint gave him a questioning look, but the man mimed carrying something heavy. Clint smiled and nodded. This meant he could get the rest of the meat in one trip, not two.

When they got back, he started prepping his home made smoker to preserve some of the meat. He salted some and left some off to the side to cook fresh for tonight. The woman helped to shuck some ears of corn while Clint cut steaks from the tenderloin of the deer. He cooked everything over the fire pit and then shared it out. He spent the dinner watching as the man and woman discussed him and whether or not they should bring him back to the others. 

He was incredibly glad to have other human company, but his past led him to hold back. He pretended that he couldn’t read their lips and kept a slightly confused look on his face the entire time. But their conversation seemed reasonable – whether or not they could trust him, his skill with a bow (it was hard not to smile at that), the quality or rather lack thereof of his defenses (it was easy not to smile at that) and so on.

For dessert, the woman pulled out a pen. He grinned and went inside to bring back a note pad, which he handed to her. 

“I am Anne. He is Lee,” she wrote. Clint grinned and added his name to the list. 

Food, company and conversation. Things really seemed to be looking up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to Ophite, who made a comment that sparked some changes.


	8. To be a Wolf or a Tiger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A journey begins.

Chapter 8 To be a Wolf or a Tiger  
…the wolf, which hunts in a pack, has a greater chance of survival than the [tiger], which hunts alone. ~Christian Louis Lange

Anne and Lee spent the night. Clint showed them the outhouse, the layout of the main house and led them to one of the second floor bedrooms. He then went into the bedroom he had been using and locked the door. He then climbed out the window, onto the roof and into the attic through the side vent, which he had set up as a hidden door. Just because he craved human companions didn’t mean he trusted them.

Even with his more hidden sleeping area, he slept fitfully. Judging by their appearances the next morning, so did they. The fact that they didn’t seem to immediately trust him completely reassured him, oddly enough. It seemed a more honest reaction than acceptance, so he treated them to a breakfast of scrambled eggs and dehydrated potato hash browns.

As they sat at the kitchen table after the meal, Lee wrote on the notepad “We are part of a larger group. We have a farm about a day’s travel to the north.”

Clint wrote “Past the washed out bridge?” Lee nodded and Clint frowned. “You didn’t build a bridge, did you?”

Lee glanced at Anne, puzzled. Clint turned to her in time to catch the last part of her sentence “…he ask that?” Clint turned to Lee who wrote “No, we swam.”

Clint shook his head. “Bad idea. Sometimes the rotters get stuck when there’s high banks, and most of them sink. They just stand there underwater. I’ve seen them pull deer down.” Lee blanched. Clint continued “They can cross bridges. Better to keep small groups from joining up into big groups.”

Anne took the notepad. “How do you cross the river then?”

Clint shrugged. “It’s not much of a river. There’s a few places where the trees are pretty close. I rig lines between them."

Anne and Lee exchanged glances. "You spend a lot of time in the trees?"

He nodded. "Don't like to fight them by myself, easier to avoid them."

"Avoid? Why not kill?"

"You know how to kill them?" 

Anne blinked and looked surprised but it was Lee who answered. "Headshot."

Clint shook his head ruefully. "Just figured that out yesterday, when you were running from them. Accident."

They both looked shocked. Anne shook her head and wrote "You’ve survived this entire time and didn’t know that?!"

Clint tried to swallow his embarrassment and shame, but felt his face growing red. “Deer have hard skulls. Hunters aim for heart and lungs, not heads.”

Lee pulled the pad of paper towards himself and wrote. “That says a lot about your resourcefulness, to be able to escape them for so long. It explains why you went up high. We never thought of that. If we could avoid them instead of killing them, we might save some ammunition.”  
Anne held up one finger and then pulled Lee away to talk to them. He didn't want to stare and give them any reason to suspect his lip reading abilities but the glimpses he caught told him that they were arguing about bringing him with them when they returned to their base. 

Eventually they returned to the table and Anne wrote "You should come back with us." Clint's heart skipped a beat. He'd always been a loner, but never by choice. This time of solitude had been harder on him than he had realized. Having two people here, even people he didn’t trust completely, made him feel infinitely better and underscored how lonely he had been. Still, a lifetime of caution led him to answer "Why?"

Lee looked surprised, but Anne just wrote "We have a farm, with a large garden, acres of pasture, cattle, a windmill. More people means we can protect each other better."

He countered with "More mouths to feed." 

She replied "More people to produce food."

He shook his head. "Too big to protect." It was her turn to shake her head. "We have barbed wire fences to slow them down and dogs to warn us. Guns."

He frowned. "Arrows are reusable, bullets are not. How much ammo do you have?" She nodded and replied "We know it will eventually run out. We’re trying to conserve. That's why we would like you. You can teach us how to use bows."

Clint had learned not to trust pity. But if they needed him, he would be coming in as a needed member, not a charity case, seen as a drain on resources. He might be valued. Try as hard as his brain might to argue against this, his much abused heart jumped at the chance. He nodded.

They both broke into smiles, and Lee shook his hand. Clint kept his smile from showing, not trusting it, afraid it would show how much he wanted this.

"I need today to secure here. We go tomorrow?" They nodded. "How many people do you have?"

"There's 13 of us. Us, Charlie and Lisa, Devonte and Destiny, Victor, Bill, the other Bill, Erik, Big T, Tom."

"Who's in charge?" Clint had been counting in his head. "And you left one out. Who's the other one?"

Lee answered. "They’re both the same guy. He's brilliant. We'd have fallen apart ten times over if he hadn't shown up to take control, guide us. He'll be very happy to meet you and bring you in."

Anne took the notepad and wrote "You've impressed us with what you've done here, by yourself. We've met other single survivors. None of them have done what you have. None of them have managed as well as you have. You have drive, determination. You've got heart." She smiled at him. "Loki is going to love adding you to the group."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Okay, be honest, did you see that coming?


	9. Contemplation and Awareness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint, Anne and Lee start back to rejoin their group.

Chapter 9 Contemplation and Awareness

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival. ~ Aristotle

Clint secured everything the best that he could. He gathered up his supplies, neatened everything and went to bed that night ready to leave in the morning. Being Clint, an hour after he went to bed, he left one quiver of arrows in his hidden room in the attic, along with food and water. He’d done the same at his other safe house. Lee and Anne seemed trustworthy so far, but he’d been betrayed in the past by others with much stronger ties to him. He was going to play his hand close to his chest for quite some time before he trusted someone enough to give up all of his secrets.

As they headed out, they each carried as much of the current harvest of his garden as they could. Proving that he could provide in multiple ways might help in convincing this new group that he wouldn’t be a burden, although his traveling companions seemed to feel that he would be welcomed with open arms.

In a switch from yesterday, Anne was the more talkative one, jotting quick notes to him as they walked.

"What did you do for a living? Were you a hunting guide or something?"

Clint snorted in laughter, then wrote "Circus. Used to climbing to help set up tents and poles. Hunted for meat to feed us and big cats." For some reason, he didn't want to tell her that was one of the performers. "You?"

"Just a secretary."

Clint nodded amiably but inside he was screaming 'Liar!'

"You handled yourself really well back there for a secretary." He made certain his body language stayed relaxed.

"I took some self defense classes."

"Lee?"

"He was a personal trainer."

"That explains the muscles."

She laughed. They walked without conversation for a long time after that while Clint pondered. They were keeping secrets from him, that was obvious, but since he was keeping secrets, too, he couldn't exactly call them on it. Trust had to be built over a period of time, he knew that.

The hours wore on through the heat of the afternoon as they made their slow way down the abandoned road. Being so far from has established safe routes was making Clint nervous and on edge. They passed long distances where there was no way to get up high, to get to safety. He was being forced to rely on the hearing of his companions, and putting his life in the hands (and ears) of strangers really set him on edge.  
Several hours after setting out, they came to the washed out bridge they had talked about previously. The creek it crossed was only 50 or so feet across at this point, but Clint knew that the possibility of submerged rotters made swimming it too dangerous. 

He led his companions off of the road and back into the abandoned neighborhoods that surrounded them. At the back of one subdivision the creek narrowed. A storm earlier that year had brought down trees all over the area and one had fallen most of the way across the creek. Clint led them along it until the trunk became too small for them to safely navigate. He searched his quiver until he found a specific arrow, then searched out a spool of fishing line. He ran the fishing line through a ring near the nock and back to his belt, leaving several dozen yards of the clear line pooled at his feet. He shot the arrow into a strong tree standing on the other bank, then tied a cable to the fishing line and pulled that through until the cable was stretched across the creek. He tied one end to the tree trunk, turned to grin at his companions, then used the cable to swing across the remainder of the creek. 

When he was safely on the bank of the creek, he tied a rock to the cable and swung it back to Anne and Lee. It took them several tries but Lee eventually caught it and was able to swing across, followed shortly by Anne. They then made their way along the creek bank back to the road. 

Twilight was fast approaching and Anne and Lee made no indication that they were stopping for the night. Clint fished the notepad out of his pocket and pulled on Anne's shirt to get her attention.

She whirled around and hit him in the face with her elbow, followed up by what felt like a punch to the ribs that put him on his ass in the road faster than he could think. He sat there for a moment trying to clear his eyes of the tears caused by the hit to his face. It also gave him a chance to get his brain back online. Secretary. Riiiiiiiight. Cop was a possibility, but most cops identified strongly with their jobs, would lead with that. So would a lot of soldiers. She hadn't, had lied instead, tried to make herself seem weaker. Clint had been in plenty of fights, been in his share of bar brawls, and yet she had taken him down effortlessly. Lies and more lies.

He got to his feet with what was probably a grunt and picked up the notepad from where it had fallen on the ground. "Sorry, wanted to ask when we were stopping."

Lee was the one who answered. "We're close enough that we're going to keep on, not stop for the night. Should be there by midnight."

Clint frowned. "Dangerous. Can't see them in the dark."

Anne shook her head. "Hear them."

Clint grimaced. "Rather stop, short walk in morning."

Anne shook her head vehemently and pointed down the road. “We lost a lot of time with your detour over the creek. Swimming it was a lot faster.”  
He replied “I know, but it’s not worth the chance that there were rotters in the water.”

Lee looked at him skeptically. “Have you seen them in the water?”

Clint had to shake his head. “I’ve seen deer swimming along, get pulled down. Didn’t see the rotters, but what else would be under the water for that long, not needing to come up for air?”

Anne suddenly smiled and walked closer to him, putting her arm around him. "It’s all right, we understand. You haven’t had anyone to look out for you, like we have. I’m sorry for hitting you. Let's get home and I'll make it up to you. We'll have a big dinner and a party to welcome you."

Clint must have looked unconvinced because she laughed and hugged him. "Stop worrying, you'll be a big hit. We're always looking for other survivors. And you have so much to share with us!" Even after the hug ended, she kept her hand on his shoulder. After months and months of solitude, the touch of a human hand felt so good that he left it there. His eyes even closed momentarily to focus on the soft, welcome touch.

That was, of course, the moment that the first rotters came out of the treeline and came running towards them.

If the wind had been blowing in a different direction, Clint probably would have died there, on a lonely country road, his bones covered in dust. But a breeze kicked up and brought the stench of putrid flesh. He opened his eyes to see them maybe 50 feet away and closing fast. He had an arrow in his hand, one on the string and the first one in the air before Lee even turned around to see the first few fall with Clint's arrows in their eyes.

Anne spun and pulled a pistol from a holster in the small of her back, adopted a stable stance and started picking off the deaders one by one. Lee turned to look at her, nodded, then ran past them down the road. Anne started falling back and Clint paced backwards with her, glancing behind them occasionally to make certain that nothing was coming up behind them. 

The whole thing was over in what was probably only five to ten minutes, but felt like an hour. Clint was breathing hard and more than a little twitchy, when he felt a hand on his shoulder from behind he jumped forward, tucked into a roll and had his bow drawn by the time he had risen back up on one knee. Lee turned paler than his brown skin had ever been and backed up, his hands in the air. Clint slowly lowered his bow and took a moment to catch his breath. 

Anne walked over and offered him a hand up. He pulled out the notepad and wrote "not a secretary." She nodded and motioned for the notepad then quickly wrote "You did more than help around the circus." 

He nodded. "Performer. You?"

"Former cop." She smiled wryly. "No more lies, deal?"

He grinned and nodded. "Deal."

"Did you hear those rotters coming?"

She shook her head No.

"I'm stopping for the night in a safe place. We finish the walk in the morning."

This time, no one argued with him.


	10. Cooperation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The three wanderers make it to a camp.

Chapter 10 Cooperation

… those who are able to engage in social cooperation of various sorts do better in survival… ~ Robert Nozick

In the morning, they made a breakfast of some eggs and vegetables Clint had carried. They scoured the house they had stayed in for usable supplies and then headed out. It was late enough that the early morning fall chill was almost gone, with a promise of a warm afternoon. The heat of summer was gone. That only made Clint more nervous. Winter was on its way, and every day spent traveling was a day not spent gathering food and preparing.

From the way Anne and Lee had talked last night, it sounded like this group was pretty well organized. They had spoken of hunting parties, of people who were farmers and of others who gathered supplies from houses and businesses. He thought it was interesting that they called it 'gathering'. To him, it had always been scavenging or stealing other people's stuff. But they were right. Those other people weren't coming back. There was no sense in holding onto old ideas.

They walked for several hours until they turned down a dirt road. The fields on either side were fenced in barbed wire but had nothing more substantial. It was obvious that the fields were either being harvested or were now empty, standing barren for the upcoming winter. Only a minute or two after turning onto the road, a pack of small dogs came barreling across the field, probably barking. From the look of them, they were making enough noise to raise the dead. Or at least catch their attention. The space between Clint's shoulder blades began to itch and he looked around nervously.

Anne touched his arm, then stroked it soothingly, as if to calm a nervous animal. She made the OK sign, and he shook he head, then pointed at the dogs and covered his ears and grimaced. She looked surprised, then pulled out the tattered notebook. "You can hear them?"

He shook his head, then wrote "Dead can."

She wrote "If they are here barking at us, then they don't have anything better to bark at."

Clint supposed that made sense, but it still left him uneasy. Maybe the dogs weren't making as much noise as he had thought. The dogs at the circus had always seemed very loud to him, to the point that he avoided them. But they didn't seem to bother Barney and the others nearly as much. The crowds bothered him too, during performances and he often turned his aids down during his performances, however most of the performers talked about enjoying the noise. He knew that his hearing aids had distorted sounds. Maybe his memories weren't accurate. Lee and Anne and their group had survived just as long as he had, so their methods had to work. He swallowed his objections and walked on.

As they continued down the road, they came to a gate rigged across the road. It swung easily open at their touch and they continued on.

A short walk down the dirt path brought them to a camp of tents and beat up travel trailers. The sight brought an unexpected wave of homesickness to Clint. It looked so much like the camp he'd lived in for so long with the circus. His last memories rose up, threatening to overwhelm him before he fought them down. Remembering his dead circus family wasn't going to do him any good.

People slowly came from the tents and trailers, almost all men, with a few women. Bandanas, denim and leather made the bulk of their clothes. These were not people who had ever depended on others. These were people who were used to fighting and surviving. He felt the faint beginnings of hope. Maybe they could survive this. Some of his earlier doubts dissolved, and he turned to Anne. "Where is Loki? I want to meet him."

She gave a small, tight smile. "He's not here. We'll take you to him. It's a long walk, though. It will be easier to stay here tonight and head up the mountain tomorrow."

He gave her a questioning look, and she laughed, then turned away from him. A woman looked at her and said "Not for a few hours."

Anne gestured for Clint to follow her and started off. They walked along silently, passing people doing all of the jobs necessary to keep a large group fed and sheltered. All of them stopped working to watch Anne and Clint pass. They eventually came to a break in the trees and Clint stopped in shock. Across a large lake rose an immense mountain of solid stone, almost vertical walls towering hundreds of feet above the surrounding land. Anne pointed.

"Loki's Mountain."

They stood for a while, admiring the view, until Clint couldn't deny the setting sun any longer. He got Anne's attention and pointed in the direction of the camp. She nodded and they headed back.

Once back in the camp they sat down at a fire pit. The level of activity was dying down as the men completed their tasks and started to gather at the fire pit. Bowls and spoons were passed around and Anne and Clint were given the first spot in line to scoop food from a large pot of rice and beans.   
The food was filling, which really was all Clint looked for these days. He couldn’t help but notice how the people from the camp acted towards them, though, letting them eat first, not sitting close, talking accompanied by small gestures. Lee and Anne didn’t act the same at all – their actions seemed larger, more frequent. They obviously thought of themselves as important, and the people in the camp gave way to them.

They slept that night in a wooden shack, built of 2 x 4s and thick plywood. It seemed sturdy enough, and there were two bars across the door to hold it shut. It wasn’t high enough to make Clint feel totally secure, but it was definitely better than spending the night out of doors. 

Or so he told himself during the long hours of the night, while he stared up at the roof.


	11. A Powerful Force

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint proves his worth, climbs a mountain, and comes face to face with Loki.

Chapter 11 – A Powerful Force  
That survival instinct, that will to live, that need to get back to life again, is more powerful than any consideration of taste, decency, politeness, manners, civility. Anything. It’s such a powerful force. ~ Danny Boyle

The next morning they set out for the mountain down wooded paths, a big change from the open roads they had been walking down. Clint kept on his guard, looking into every shadow for rotters, but Lee and Anne seemed calm. 

After a few hours they came to a train track. Lee altered their path to follow along it until they came to a rough station built out of 2 x 4s and plywood. It was raised off the ground and gave them both shelter and good sight lines, so Clint didn't complain much when they settled down to wait. 

A short while later, maybe an hour or so, both Anne and Lee stood up, so Clint followed their lead and looked down the track. A steam engine was puffing along, pulling several cars that had once been open air carriages but were now covered in metal. Seeing a machine work was almost wondrous to Clint, after such a long time with only animal power or himself. This behemoth of steel and motion made him feel as if this apocalypse wasn't the end. It gave him hope that humanity would be able to triumph.

The others scrambled down the ladder and stood next to the track as the train slowly ground to a halt. They spoke with the driver then walked to the last of the carriages, gesturing for Clint to join them. The door swung open to reveal a heavily armed and armored guard who looked them all up and down before nodding and allowing them to board. As soon as the door closed the train started up again. 

Clint could see the countryside passing through slits that had been cut into the corrugated metal covering the sides odf the car. They were covering ground much more quickly than they would have been able to on foot and in far less than an hour they had circled halfway around the mountain of stone.

The train stopped and let them out at a real station with more guards carrying rifles and covered in layers of what looked like bullet proof armor. Other people were unloading the train - Clint saw vegetables, fruit, corn, sacks of flour and sugar, and even a few head of cattle. 

An immediate difference that Clint saw here was that there were children. Mostly teens seemed to be working around the train station but as they walked away from it he saw more and younger children, all of them well supervised as they moved between many small wooden structures, seemingly barns and sheds with a few houses. Some were tending gardens, other were taking care of sheep and chickens and pigs. He even caught a glimpse of a few milking some cows. 

As they walked past a grand house he saw a group of children sitting on the ground with books while a white haired gentleman stood in front of a chalkboard, writing out a sentences and diagrams. They looked a lot like the diagrams Clint had seen of battles on the few occasions when he had been able to look in books at libraries. 

Anne led them into a glass and concrete building on the other side of the big house. They were stopped by guards, who seemed to argue with Anne for quite a while. The armor partially covered their mouths, so Clint couldn't see the exact words exchanged, but Anne kept gesturing towards him. The guards finally let them enter, but two of them fell into step behind Clint, which made him nervous. This in turn made the guards nervous, so by the time they stopped in front of an office everyone's palms were sweaty.

A large man with a short hair cut sat at a desk in the office. Anne spoke to him, and there was more arguing and gesturing. Clint finally sat down and rested his head against the wall. Anne eventually squatted down in front of him and handed him a sheet of paper. On it she had written "You need to earn your place here. Can you do some shooting to show them what you can do?". To that Clint grinned and got to his feet.

They led him outside to a large, long lawn facing the rock of the mountain. About halfway up there was a carving of three men on horseback. Clint ignored it after his initial look because several teens were setting up some bales of hay a few dozen yards down the sloping lawn. Clint shook his head and walked up one. He grabbed the baling twine and dragged the bale much further down until it presented him with a better, more challenging target, although still one that he was certain of hitting. This was a performance after all.

He walked back to where everyone else was gathered, took up the proper stance, nocked an arrow and cleared his mind. His arrow sped down the lawn and buried itself into the hay. Then he grinned at the man he was there to impress and took the next three shots without ever looking away from the man's face. 

He grabbed an apple from Lee and rolled it down the slope of the lawn then pinned it in place. He did a speed round, firing off ten arrows in ten seconds. He laid four arrows down on the ground to make a square, then walked away from it and towards the bale, firing arrows as he went. When he reached the bale of hay, he retrieved all of his arrows, then walked back, firing the arrows into the air as he went. All of them landed in the square he had left behind. When he reached it, he gathered the arrows up, cleaned them on his pants, and returned them to his quiver. He reached for the notepad and Anne handed it over, speechless for once. He wrote out a message and handed it to the man, then grinned. "Convinced yet that bows have their advantages?" The man gave a slow smile and a nod, then pulled out a notepad of his own. "I'm Ross. I'm one of Loki's, well he calls us his lieutenants. I run this facility." 

Clint looked back towards Ross who had continued writing. "The other compounds hold the normal people, the everyday workers that grow our food and form the base of our operations. At this compound, we house and train Loki's best troops."

Clint looked over at Lee and Anne. She spoke to Lee who puffed up with pride and gestured around, then pointed at himself and Anne. Clint nodded. This was where Anne and Lee were based.

Clint gestured at the children, a questioning look on his face. Ross wrote "This is the best defended facility we have. Parents are happy to have their children here, safe from threats from the outside world." He smiled at Clint.

"I think we need to have you meet Loki." He gestured to two of the armored guards. "Marcus, Dean, take them up the east slope trail."

Lee must have said something behind Clint's back because Ross nodded, the two guards stood down in a more relaxed pose and there a slight delay. After a bit, an older, tired looking woman brought over some sandwiches made with tortillas. Clint hadn't had any had sort of bread in so long that he had just about forgotten what it tasted like. He happily ate two of the wraps then they all set out around the giant rock. At some point they turned towards the mountain and started climbing. The trail, which started out gentle, gradually grew steeper over the course of an hour or so as they wound their way up. The trees and underbrush gave way to a field of stumps as they climbed the last bit.

Just as they past the last trees they came upon a sturdy wooden palisade with a strong gate. One of the guards with them put his hands to his mouth as if he was yelling something. There was a pause, he yelled again, and then the gate swung ponderously open. 

Inside was an expanse of bare rock probably covering several acres, with one low concrete building and many sheds of wood and metal. Clint could see that the fence didn't circle the whole top, instead it only extended along the east face. The other faces seemed to drop off steeply. If they were anything like the face he had seen from the lawn below, they wouldn't be climbable so there was no sense in wasting resources on fencing them off. 

A group of people awaited them, standing behind a man with long dark hair, dressed in a green shirt and black trousers. "Lee, Anne, we're glad to have you back safely. And with company, no less." The man's body language took on a slightly more authoritative posture. "Company that is rumored to be useful." Clint held himself still and did his best to give no indication that he knew what Loki was saying.

Clint held himself up straight, not challenging but not yielding either. This meeting would probably set the tone of their relationship and Clint wasn't about to become a brainless automaton at Loki's beck and call. Loki looked at him searchingly, then smiled and beckoned for Clint to follow him as he turned and walked up the long rutted dirt road towards the low building at the very crest of the mountain. It looked like it had once been a visitor's center or something, but now the large windows had boarded over with plywood and rough ladders led to the roof.

They stopped at an outdoor kitchen and sat down at one of several wooden picnic tables. Someone fetched a pad of paper out of the building. Loki wrote out "Tell me how you can help our group, so that I can best determine your placement."

Clint wrote back "Placement?"

Loki nodded. "Our group is large enough that we are split into four locations. Each one has its own territory and responsibilities. This group is primarily administrative. We manage all of the resources, so as to use them most efficiently. We scout for materials and help to defend the other groups as needed."

"Your other groups?" He wrote. "What do they do?"

Loki replied "Two focus on farming and the last one houses most of our mechanical needs, primarily vehicles for scouting and supply runs. Now friend, tell me about yourself."

Clint held up his bow. "I hunt. Can provide meat. Also good for defense. Silent, doesn't attract the rotters like a loud gunshot. Also arrows are reusable. I can teach your people."

"What good is it to teach the others if we only have one bow?"

Clint answered "Lots of bow hunters around here. Search houses."

Loki smiled.

That night, Clint was treated to a dinner of fresh trout, cooked over a campfire, with grilled zucchini and squash, and a salad of fresh greens, carrots, cucumbers and a raspberry dressing. A woman he hadn't been introduced to cooked it all for the group, and Clint realized how bare bones his meals had been. Attempts at conversation with him were quickly frustrated by the slow pace of writing everything out, but Clint was happy that many of the others had tried at all. After dinner they walked back down the trail a bit until they found an old stump to use as a target, where he showed some archery. They seemed suitably impressed and four of the men plus Anne asked him to teach them the next day.

When things quieted down, they showed him to a room in the building that was being used as a sort of dormitory. There were air mattresses for everyone and both blankets and sleeping bags, which most of the men were currently using as extra padding. One of the largest rooms had been converted to a gathering space and had a fireplace built in it, but this room did not. Right now it was comfortable with just a blanket, but Clint suspected the sleeping bags would be needed come winter. The winds would be brutal here on the exposed rock.

Clint laid his head down on the soft mattress with the warm blanket over him, knowing that that he was in a secure location with others to guard his sleep. He had a full belly with the assurance of more food in the morning. His skills were valuable and needed and it seemed as if he had found a good leader that he was willing to follow. He let the soft blue of the room's walls soothe him to sleep.


	12. Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At a time when...destruction threatens the survival of humanity, we should seriously consider any avenue that offers some hope.

Chapter 12 - Hope

At a time when...destruction threatens the survival of humanity, we should seriously consider any avenue that offers some hope. ~ Stanislav Grof

Over the next few months, Clint grew comfortable with his new routine. Mornings were spent making bows. He was still learning but every bow he made was better than the last. They weren’t as good as the commercial bows, but like Loki said, those were limited, while the ones he made would start to outnumber those. So the commercial compound bows went to the soldiers, while his recurves were sent out to the surrounding communities. 

Every afternoon he took a group of Loki’s elite soldiers to the range that he had built and spent hours training them on their bows until the archery started to become second nature for them. He wanted to train people in the communities but agreed with Loki that if he spread himself too thin he wouldn’t do anyone any good. So his plan was to train the guards that guarded and shielded Loki's protectrate, and when they were good enough, they would train the others.  
Sometimes an alert would go out and the teams would respond. The little communities that surrounded Loki's Mountain were fairly widespread and it took some time for them to get there, even with the train. Because of this, each compound had a designated shelter for the inhabitants to hide in to ride out the attack until Loki's response teams could get there to kill the zombies. Unfortunately, building something strong enough to withstand a prolonged attack was difficult. Small structures were stronger than large ones, so no community had a shelter large enough for everyone. With every attack, a few more were lost.

As Loki said, it was an unfortunate consequence of limited resources. Sure, there were plenty of trees, but trees were valuable resources that took decades to replace, so they had to rely on trees that were nearing the end of their life cycle. In addition, nails and screws were getting harder to find in sufficient supply. Loki assured everyone that more shelters were being built as quickly as possible. 

This, at least, was something that Clint could help with. So when some time came up where he wouldn’t be training anyone for a few days, he packed up a bag and headed out to scrounge. He had a better understanding of how to fight and felt more confident about being by himself. That wasn't to say that he *truly* felt confident, just more confident than he been before

He didn’t go as far afield as his old territory, of course. While his network of skywalks was the only place he really felt felt safe, the two day walk to get there and back was too dangerous. And he had already scrounged a lot of the materials that were available in the area.

So he set out in a direction he'd never gone before, hoping to find things that would help. As he had suspected, the stores were mostly stripped bare. He gave up on them quickly as a waste of time and continued traveling until he found a neighborhood

The first order of business was to establish a safe base. He found a house with a porch that gave him easy access to the roof. With his hatchet he chopped a hole into the attic. 

Unfortunately, the homeowners of this house hadn't put any boards down to support boxes. He went back out onto the roof and pried the boards off the side of the house. It was more difficult than he had expected, and when he got the first board off, he dropped it - it was MUCH heavier than he had expected. He stopped to look at it and realized that it was made out of some material that was more like concrete than wood. He grinned. If all of the houses were made out of this material, then a lot of their problems had just been solved. 

He eventually got enough boards off the side and into the attic to make a place to sleep. With a blanket that he had carried and a meal of dried meat and fruit, he spent a more comfortable night than his first weeks alone. Being prepared and having supplies made all the difference.

Over his breakfast in the morning, he re-evaluated his plans. His original thought when he left the mountain was to scout out trees and sources for hardware. But now he realized that the houses provided all that needed. He had planned to be gone four days, so he decided to use his time scouting for supplies.

He headed down the road, stopping in at least one house in every subdivision he walked past. So far, he'd been very lucky, he hadn't come across any of the walkers. Given the number of attacks on the supporting farms around Loki's mountain, he knew there had to be a significant number of them, but he hadn't seen any of them since he'd left. He’d seen some splatter in two of the houses, and obvious signs of fighting and clean up, but no walkers. 

Spotting a water tower in the distance, Clint decided to make that his end goal. He could get a good look around, eat his lunch, and then head back with some information to give to the gathering parties.

It only took him an hour to get to the tower, and a quarter of an hour later, he was on top, surveying the world.   
Which had suddenly increased in population - the orderly rows of a large garden were visible in the distance. He glanced at the sun. He’d planned to spend the night in a house close to the water tower - he’d even prepared his sleeping space before the climb, but he couldn’t wait.

He made it to the bottom of the tower in record time and headed out.


	13. Brotherhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint finds the other group.

Chapter 13 Brotherhood  
Brotherhood is the very price and condition of man’s survival. ~ Carlos P. Romulo

The next morning Clint headed out, determined to check out whoever was taking care of the carefully tended garden he had seen from the water tower. The morning was cool, with a promise of frost, but with a good chance of warmth by the afternoon. It was a good day for walking, and he was hoping to make good time. 

Of course, once he got past the areas patrolled by Loki's soldiers, things got tougher. He ran into two small groups of walkers along the way. He was able to avoid one group but had to engage in a short fight with the other group. He managed to drop several before they saw him, but then it was a running battle until he managed to make it up onto a roof. Once he had the high ground, it was easy to pick them off one by one. The fight had taken the better part of the afternoon, however, so he settled in for the night.

The next day he set out again, and this time he he got far enough to see distinct signs of other people. Fallen leaves on the roads showed signs of tires, fences had been made taller with whatever materials were available, and there gardens set up wherever possible.

He spent the night in a fortified house that seemed to be set up as a way station, with basic supplies but not enough for long term needs. He suspected that he could have contacted the people, but his self imposed mission was to spy on the group, not to make contact. He had no idea if they were friendly or aggressive, or paranoid or just plain crazy. They'd done much the same in the circus when they were scouting a new town to potentially add to their circuit. Some towns were friendlier to wandering carnies, while others were distinctly hostile. Clint had gotten good at feeling out the prevailing attitude of a town, and he figured those skills would be much the same here.It would be better all around if he could just get a glimpse of them, get some information to bring back to Loki. Loki would know what to do with the information.

He got little sleep that night, wondering about this other group, hoping and worrying. There was a good chance that they would welcome the chance to join forces with a group so large and well organized as Loki's, with their ability to lend protection and to share the skills that their members had. But you couldn't be too careful.

Clint took to the trees as soon as he could, for as long as he could. He wasn't able to get too close, but it was close enough for him to see figures start to come out of their houses and start to go about their days. The group had built fences and gates, adding on to the wall that been built at least partially around a development. Together, the walls and fences made a relatively safe area for the people to work in. The garden he had seen was a ways down the road, but the lack of leaves on the road and some vehicles parked inside the large gate for the development made it clear how they got back and forth to it.

Sure enough, after enough time had passed for breakfast and morning chores, a group loaded up into some trucks and headed down the road. He noticed that it took several people to move the gate. It was obviously heavily fortified.

As a matter of fact, the whole fence seemed heavier and taller and stronger than it needed to be. Loki stressed the importance of striking a balance between building for safety and not wasting resources. They were careful to not build things higher than they needed to be. They also had to keep in mind that they were building to protect several communities, while these people only had one. 

The reason for their caution became apparent about an hour after the gardening group had left. Children started to appear from the various houses, converging on one particular house where a woman greeted them and then led them inside. 

Clint spent the rest of the day, watching the comings and goings. One man seemed to be in charge, with others frequently coming up to him for short conversations, then heading off with purpose. Every thing seemed to be ordered and organized. 

The people definitely had a different dynamic with their leader than Loki's people did. No one ever argued with Loki. Clint had seen one person try, but that was shut down immediately, and the instigator was escorted away by several of Loki's guard to cool off until she could see reason again. 

Here, some of the conversations seemed to be arguments, with big gestures and other people joining in. Sometimes they walked away with quick, angry strides, and sometimes they had a jaunty happiness to their steps. The leader started rubbing at his temples in a gesture Clint was familiar with. 

He wanted to like the guy; he reminded Clint of Carson and his style of leadership, but Loki had had made a really good point. Almost every at the main compound had memories of a leader that managed more of a democracy, one that listened to input from everyone and took time to reach decisions. But here they all were, at Loki's compound. Not a single one of those committee style leaders had been able to keep their people safe. Loki readily admitted that the other style was better suited for the former world, but the different world they found themselves in now demanded a different style of leader. Loki was harsh, and he admitted that readily, but he didn't have the luxury of time to make his decisions. He demanded instant obedience because his decisions were a matter of life and death. His people understood that that they were giving up their liberties in order to gain safety. It was a trade they had all agreed to make.

Clint shook his head. Brotherhood was all well and good before, but now... These people thought they were safe, but they'd be better off under Loki's blue banner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long; life and job and ugh.


	14. Chapter 14 - At What Cost, Survival?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The return trip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter dedicated to Kisleth, who gave me a much needed push to get this chapter finished.

Chapter 14  
If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved.  
~ Khalil Gibran 

Clint stayed long enough to get an estimate of how many people were in the group, what their strengths were, what they could bring to Loki's groups and what Loki could offer them to bolster their weaknesses. He thought about making contact with them, but communication could be tricky for him. They were sure to be wary about him approaching them, and he wouldn't be able to respond to any verbal cues or demands. He seriously doubted that they would let him approach closely enough to exchange written notes. Best to leave it to others.

He pushed himself to make the return trip faster than his outbound one had been. He'd been gone considerably longer than he had planned, and he was certain the others must be worried. It was times like this when he missed the horse. He’d definitely have to see about getting another one. Truth be told, a horse didn’t really walk any faster than a human, and a horse couldn’t trot all day. A horse increased his travel speed primarily through its senses; a horse could hear. Watching a horse’s swiveling ears, Clint could tell a lot about his surroundings. Without a hearing companion, he had to rely on his sight. That meant a lot of his time was spent turning to look in all directions. That meant that he couldn’t travel as fast. It hadn’t been so bad Before; he hadn’t had to watch for predators constantly. There were a few people who had thought it was funny to sneak up on him, but for the most part he didn’t have to always watch his back. 

That had been one of the major advantages of his catwalks in the trees. He’d made certain all of the access points had been rope ladders or rickety boards nailed to tree trunks. He’d deliberately built most of them with wide spaces in between boards, so that clumsy rotters would fall through even if they made it into the catwalks. He hadn’t felt the need to compulsively turn around, to constantly check his back. Truth be told, it was exhausting, both physically and mentally. He’d be glad to make it back to Loki’s compound, where he was safe and didn’t have to always be on the lookout. There, he could let his guard down and trust in the others to keep watch for him.

Clint finally reached one of their outlying settlements and stayed for dinner, the first meal he'd had in a day, ever since his meager supplies had finally given out. He was allowed in, of course, once he showed them the scrap of blue cloth that identified him as Loki's. The head of the settlement invited him to share in the meal of cornbread and pinto beans, but he couldn't help but to feel uneasy. The people kept a careful eye on him, as if they weren't certain if he was trustworthy or not. They should feel more comfortable around one of their protectors. It must be because he didn't spend enough time on the front lines. He'd ask Loki to let him join the fighting more often. If he stayed back, there shouldn't be much danger to him, and besides, he was fully capable of taking care of himself, as his trip was proving.

After dinner, he wandered around until he found a group chopping firewood. There was an extra ax, so he rolled a chunk of tree to a clear spot, set it up, and wrestled another piece on top. After that, he made short work of chopping it into pieces the right size for a fire. He carried them over to the woodpile where some youngsters were stacking it, and grabbed another chunk of tree. He spent an hour at the work before the leader of the group motioned for him to stop. He noticed that the others had seemed to warm up to him as he worked, and one of the kids even brought him a mug of water, which he accepted gratefully.

The head of the woodchopping group waved to get his attention and led him over to where some buckets had been painted black and hung on poles behind tarps. Short pieces of hose came out of the bottom of each bucket, with a clamp to control the flow of water. He grinned, relieved to know that he could wash the grime of the last few days off. All of the men stepped behind the tarp, undressed and wet themselves with the water that had been warming in the sun all day. They rubbed down with the home made soap, then rinsed off with more warm water. It was the best shower he’d had in a while. Careful not to use up too much water, they finished quickly and toweled off. Clint started to put his dirty clothes back on, but one of the men that had been chopping wood with them stopped him and shook his head. He handed Clint a well worn but clean pair of pants, and someone else loaned him a shirt. He smiled and shook both their hands. They smiled shyly back and showed him to a small creek where some people were washing clothes. Relieved to see armed guards watching them protectively, Clint joined in, wetting his dirty clothes and then working up a lather with more of the homemade soap. When the dirt was finally gone (more accurately, when it got too dark to see the remaining dirt) he hung the clothes on some lines and then got ready to sleep.

That night, the farmers crowded into their tiny shelters. He could tell that space was at a premium, and he tried to offer to stay outside, but their frightened faces and insistence wore him down. He agreed to sleep in one of the ramshackle wooden shelters.

He awoke to nervous shifting, feet moving in the small space, the quick inhales and shuddering exhales of someone crying. He placed his hands on the walls and felt the repeated impacts. They were under attack. 

He had no room to use his bow, and no way to get to the roof. Even if he did, there was no guarantee that the roof would hold his weight. If he opened the door, he had no way to determine how many of them were out there, where they were, how close they were. He ached to fight, to take control of his life and fate, but he couldn't do it without endangering the lives of everyone in the shed with him.

He did the best he could. He moved himself to the front, near the door that was shaking with each impact. If the rotters broke in, they would have to go through him. He held his position for long hours, long past the time when help should have arrived. Long past the time when Loki's troops, the soldiers that survived on the food these people grew, should have rescued them.

By the time sunlight peeked through the cracks in the wooden walls, and the people in the shed started trying to get past him, pointing at the door and summoning up ghastly grins, trying to show him that it was safe...by the time they emerged into the new day to count people, search for loved ones, and start mourning, Clint knew.

Standing at the ruins of a shed that had been over run, helping to dispatch the former humans who had become the rotting, walking dead overnight, Clint knew. 

Something wasn't right.

Loki was lying.

Clint had to confront him.


	15. A Tough Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was a matter of survival for the local people but it was the most violent scene I have ever witnessed.   
> ~Wendie Malick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Kisleth, who gave encouragement and for highandlonelydestiny, who had a tough night.

Chapter 15 A Tough Night  
It was a matter of survival for the local people but it was the most violent scene I have ever witnessed.   
~Wendie Malick

It was late morning before any of Loki's enforcers showed up to the community that had been so brutally attacked the night before. By then all of the turned people had been killed, graves dug and repairs begun on the damaged shelters.

All of the people that had been turned were from one shelter. One shed. It was one of these thin metal things people had used to store their tools in, back when people had worried about having a nice lawn. Clint used to watch them, fertilizing and cutting down all the luxuriant growth. It had always seemed like a waste of time to him then, and even more so now. And their sheds were proving equally useless. The metal bent in under repeated, hammering attacks. Screws and bolts rusted over the years and gave way at critical moments. The doors were flimsy and came off their tracks easily, and if enough dirt and leaves built up in the tracks, it could be hard to close them properly. Any openings could be exploited by grasping fingers and hands that felt no pain.

That looked like what had happened here. The doors were ripped off the shed, the metal bent outward. There was blood splashed over the front of the metal shed and some on the wooden floor, and the scent hung thick in the air. Some people had soap and scrub brushes, but Clint knew from experience that it was going to take more than that to remove the stains, both physical and emotional.  
He watched as the head of Loki's group seemed to question the community leader. He moved to where he read the soldier's lips.

"...be everywhere at once. We have a large area to cover." A pause while the farmer spoke. "Well it would be even worse if we weren't centrally located." The soldier made a placating gesture while the other man reacted, his arms making large gestures. "We encountered a big group on our way here. We had to put down close to a hundred of them. If that group had joined the group that was already here, well it would have been even worse." He pointed at the pile of smoldering corpses. "There were about 50 here. I'm sorry it took us so long, but we had to get the signal, travel, get through a major fight and then travel here." 

The farmer seemed upset, and Clint couldn’t blame him. But he couldn’t blame the logic of the soldiers, either. As horrible as it was, they had to keep everyone safe, not just the people at one farm.  
But no matter how many times he tried to convince himself, something just seemed off. He expected that the community that had lost people would feel it more than soldiers who didn’t know them well, but the soldiers really didn’t seem to feel any sense of loss. 

Clint helped as much as he could, which didn't feel like nearly enough. Even his tough hands were feeling sore after digging in the tough red clay, the graves like wounds in the otherwise green earth. The sweat dried on his body in the cold breeze of the late autumn, even as the sun warmed things up.

The response team gave little to no help, and left before he did, claiming they were going to make certain that there were no other groups of rotters in the area. Giving them enough of a lead to avoid suspicion, Clint set out to follow them. He'd spent many hours in the woods tracking wounded deer, and had gotten good enough that he rarely lost one now. Granted, his current quarry wasn't leaving a blood trail to follow, but their woods craft was nonexistent. Broken branches, bootprints and trampled vegetation told a tale to his experienced eyes. And that tale had two stories in it.

The first was that the soldiers weren't tracking anything. Oh, they were looking, sure enough, but they knew where they were going. They were traveling fast and sure, never deviating from their course. The other part of the tale was that there were many, many rotters that passed through these woods on a regular basis, far more than Clint was used to seeing from his time alone. There were enough of them that trails were being worn into the vegetation. Clint had noticed, during his time alone, that the dead tended to take the easiest paths. They were capable of walking uphill, but unless they were chasing something, they tended to walk downhill. If there was a thick bramble of vegetation, the first ones would get tangled in it and the others would go around until they found a clearer path. These tendencies meant that they usually traveled in predictable patterns, and he saw those here.

There was something going on here, something more than a simple laziness on the part of the response teams. Clint didn't know what it was, but it felt organized, felt as if it had a purpose. He kept trailing the team for most of the afternoon, until he saw a cell tower. That would give him greater height than anything else in the area. He made for it, being careful to avoid the obvious trails that the rotters had left.

It took him less than an hour to reach the tower. It was on top of a hill, so he was more likely to be safe, but he didn't dare count on that. He climbed up ten or so feet before he tied himself in and stopped for a meal of coarse bread that the farmers had given him, so much tougher than what he was used to. Clint idly wondered if another farm sent their bread to Loki's base camp.

He tied his bow onto a strap at his belt, kept ther for just such an occasion. The metal was warm beneath his hands while the cool breeze blew a counterpoint. The tree limbs waved gently about, and a few birds flew overhead. It all looked so peaceful. At first it was almost hard to believe that the massacre of the farmers had happened less than 24 hours ago, but the more he thought about it, the more the blood and terror haunted him.

With the silent tears and shuddering bodies of the defenseless in his memories, Clint started to climb.

The tower stretched on before him and,the few times he looked down, below him as well. Reach up, grab the warm metal, step up with tired leg muscles and what was probably a grunt. He didn't let himself stop, didn't take a short break - if he did that, he might not be able to convince his legs and arms to keep going. Reach up, grab, step. Reach up, grab, step.

He finally reached the top, where there was a small platform, probably meant for servicing the transmitters. Clint wondered if they were still working, sending out signals that no one could receive anymore.

After a moment to catch his breath, Clint started looking in earnest for some sort of pattern, some trick of the land, some defensible spot. Something, anything that he could use to help solve the mystery of the too confidant patrols, of the too frequent walkers.

It took him several minutes, but he saw it, he couldn't stop seeing it.

This was no coincidence. The rotter attacks on the farmers, the patrols' supreme confidence that they were safe, the lack of rotters at the base of the mountain.

The pattern made it clear.

This was all planned out. Loki was deliberately leading the rotters where he wanted them.

Straight into the farmers.


	16. Hoping for Survival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This generation has given up on growth. They're just hoping for survival.  
> ~ Penelope Spheeris

Chapter 16  
This generation has given up on growth. They're just hoping for survival.  
~ Penelope Spheeris

*******************************

From the top of the tower, Clint could see Loki's plan literally laid out before him. Ridges ran along the ground, funneling the rotters towards the mountain of stone and the former plantation that Loki had taken as his base. He had needed some way to keep them away. Walls were resource intensive to build and maintain, and needed to be patrolled for breaches, breaks, etc.

Since he couldn't, or more accurately wouldn't, build anything to force the walkers away, he needed to lure them. What would work as bait for the dead? The living. The walkers moved towards the farms, which were laid out to pull them away from the vulnerable entrance. Once the rotters moved towards the farms, the slope of the land, ridges and the continued scent of more life in the next farm down the line would move them farther away so they didn't threaten the stronghold.

Those so called farms and communities were there solely to keep the hungry dead from Loki's home. For all of Loki's talk that the farms were organized to support each other, Clint figured that the limited crops each grew were designed to limit the resources available to each community. He'd seen the train and trucks delivering goods to the farms, but he was willing to bet that the amount of food going out didn't equal the food going in. That would be easy to verify, by talking to the farmers.

The farmers who...Clint swallowed the bile that rose into his throat when he remembered a conversation he had seen between Loki and one of his underlings, about restocking something. Clint had thought they were talking about livestock. He'd never thought the livestock would be his own species.

He had to go warn the farmers. Help was never going to come. The patrols were there to make certain that the farms had enough people in them to function as bait.

And what was probably the worst part...Clint remembered all of the children at Loki's camp. Children placed there by parents wanting to keep them safe. They WERE safe, physically, but Clint knew they were being trained to join the patrols. Loki hadn't allowed any children over the age of 10, saying the limited spaces needed to go to the most vulnerable. Clint wondered if the real reason was that it was more difficult to brainwash the older ones, turn them against their parents.

If he left now, he could make it to the nearest farm just after sundown. Even if he couldn't make it to shelter, he could tie himself into a tree for the night and warn them in the morning.

The climb down the tower took much less time than the climb up. Clint spent much less time for his usual scan of his surroundings, trusting to luck and Loki's awful scheme to keep the rotters away.  
He wasn't completely abandoning common sense, however. As soon as he hit the ground, he untied the strap that held his bow and carried it in his bow hand, while he gathered five arrows in his other hand, ready to fire at an instant's notice.

He reached the ground and started running down the old access road. He wasn't going as fast as he could, but it was his long distance pace. He could cover a few miles at this pace before he would have to slow to a walk to rest.

The Sun slid further down in the sky, setting early this late in the year. It wasn't as bad as midwinter, but the darkness was still coming too soon for his needs. The cold breeze still wiggled its fingers through seams in his jacket, but now he welcomed it, cooling off his overheated body. Running, and sweating, were bad choices right now.

His fast pace meant that he wasn't examining his surroundings as closely as he needed to. The exertion was overheating him, especially under his thick clothing. The sweat ran down his sides. Clint knew that as soon as he stopped, the sweat would rapidly chill him, just as the cold night came on. He was making incredibly bad survival choices, but the thought of those people drove him on.

He hadn't been a saint. He had a list of crimes attached to his name, mostly petty theft. He'd swindled and lied and stolen, and taken advantage of plenty of people. But he'd always looked out for those people who had helped him. In the circus, no one stole from each other. People fought and argued all the time, but the unwritten rule was, you don't hurt your own.

Those people at the farm had taken him in, shared their food, and tried to keep him safe through the attack. The least he could would be to warn them.

That, of course, was the moment when the patrol stepped out of the woods, with Loki at the forefront.


	17. How and Where

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> our victory and our survival depend on how and where we attack.  
> ~James Forrestal

Chapter 17  
Clint pulled up short, staring at the patrol and Loki. He tried to come up with something to say to explain his long absence and his presence here, far from the normal paths traveled by the inhabitants of Loki's little kingdom. At the same time, he was calculating his escape routes, which were being cut off as the patrollers slowly started to spread out in arcs, the bright colors of their clothes standing out against the autumn colors of the forest around them.

He turned his attention to Loki, who gave him a knowing look and a smirk, and in that moment, Clint knew. Loki knew exactly what Clint had figured out. Loki knew what he thought of it. Loki knew his plans to tell the farmers.

What Loki didn't know was how far Clint was willing to go in order to protect himself. He had already pushed these individuals out of the "My People" box in his mind, and shoved them into the "They Are Outsiders" box.

He had shown these people how to shoot accurately and quickly. They'd learned to be accurate, but learning to shoot with the kind of speed that Clint had took more than a few months of practice. It took years, years that they hadn’t had yet.

Time seemed to slow. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, except for his actions. He drew, aimed, released, and drew again. He was shooting the third patroller before the first hit the ground, before the others had time to react. He saw the opening, saw how he would have to move in order to utilize it. He felt the dried leaves crunching under his feet, saw the others’ expressions of shock, and smelled his own sour sweat from the exhausting climb he’d just undertaken.

He shot two more of Loki’s soldiers, dodged right and dove for the only spot in a tuck and roll that returned him to his feet, the momentum of his roll being turned into forward momentum as he started to run. As the others started to run, time sped back up and slammed him into the chase, his heart pounding in his chest, his legs already shaking, his lungs struggling to suck in air and push it back out.

He had no chance of outrunning them. He had to outsmart them.

Yeah, right

He had no food, no water, and at most two dozen arrows. All of his gear was either on top of Loki’s mountain, or abandoned at the house.

The house.

A new plan forming in his head, he stepped behind a tree and waited, hoping his breathing wasn’t loud enough to give him away. In far less time than he had hoped, some of the patrollers raced past his tree. He waited for a chance, took out four of them, and started running in a different direction.

No matter how many he took down, he knew that Loki had more waiting. He could whittle down their numbers, but eventually they’d win. Chance was on their side; only one of them had to get lucky to take him down. He had to make them think twice about coming after him. He had to make them afraid of him.

Him and his 19 arrows. 19 arrows that had to last until he got back to his old place.

Fuck.

His stumbling feet crossed one of the paths the herds of rotters had pounded into the forest floor. He’d run across into the underbrush on the other side before his brain caught up and forced him to turn to parallel it. This was risky for so many reasons, but he didn’t see a way out of it. His breaths were scented with the coppery smell of his own blood now and he knew they had to be loud, perhaps as loud as his footfalls on the leaves and twigs, as loud as the breaking branches he was crashing through. 

Sure enough, a hand grabbed his quiver and spun him around. He shot the arrow he’d been holding ready at point blank range, and it passed right through the patroller who let go and fell backwards into another. Clint shot her too. Another woman on his right, with a knife. Clint fell to the ground, on his back, as someone he hadn’t seen pulled hard on his quiver. He rolled backwards with the pull into the person’s legs, which tripped them into the woman. They both fell on top of him. 

He grabbed her knife and stuck it into the man’s face, which was all he could reach. It distracted them both enough that Clint was able to wrestle the knife away and slice it across her neck. 

He rolled onto his back and launched two more arrows at the patrollers he could see. Then, in a move he hadn’t practiced since the circus, he kicked himself up onto his feet and kept running.

16 arrows

A quarter mile or so down the way, he took a sharp turn off of the beaten track and once again hid behind a tree. He forced his breaths to be shallow, almost hyperventilating. His vision narrowed as a black tunnel threatened to swallow everything. The smell of the forest loam rose around him from where his boots had torn through the carpet of leaves.

He’d left signs almost anyone could follow; his only hope was that the novice woodsmen would continue down the easy track in their eagerness to find him. 

As quickly as he could, he forced himself to his feet and headed back towards his former house. He couldn’t stay there, since Lee and Anne both knew its location, but he hoped he could get some supplies to make the coming winter more bearable.

And he had a plan.

*************  
He didn’t dare stop, instead walking throughout the night, on high alert, at least at the beginning. By morning, his legs were exhausted and his nerves were shot. The worst, however, was that he had had hours of darkness to think.

Clint had been hunting for most of his life. The kill wasn’t his favorite part of the hunt, but it wasn’t a part he regretted. He’d killed a few rotters after he learned the secret. But he’d never killed a person before. 

He was fairly certain it wouldn’t be the last time.


	18. Old Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Damaged people are dangerous because they know they can survive. "

"Damaged people are dangerous because they know they can survive. "

Clint pushed himself as long into the night as he could, but he finally had to stop. Exhaustion coupled with the inability to see in the moonless night meant that he was in danger of literally stumbling into a rotter. 

He found a good tree and forced his weakened limbs to climb up, above the reach of grasping hands and biting teeth. He always carried enough rope to make a harness, so with the ease of months of practice, he quickly tied himself to the tree and nodded off, dozing fitfully throughout the night, until the growing light at dawn woke him up.

The terror of his initial sprint, coupled with the push of being chased, meant that Clint had covered much more ground heading back towards his base than he had made when he was traveling away from it. Loki's terrible plan also explained why Anne and Lee hadn't seemed as competent as he would have expected.

With any luck at all, he was ahead of his pursuers, and far enough ahead that he could raid the supplies in his base house. It would be complete stupidity to think that he could stay, but running, surviving, would be immeasurably easier if he had some basics.

He watched the nearby wildlife to see if they detected any threats, but the squirrels and birds moved about their business of gathering food and defending territories, so he set out to do the same.

He pushed hard, and made it to his house without any real problems. Far from reassuring him, though, it only made him nervous. Despite his need to be in and out as quickly as he could, Clint took the time to search each room, making certain no one had reached the house before him.

When he was convinced that it was clear, he set about packing. A stick of magnesium with a flint attached, a strong pair of glasses, and a lighter (all methods of fire starting), emergency blankets, water purification tablets, fishing line and hooks, several knives, a first aid kit, several hanks of cord, and a multi-tool. He grabbed the thickest coat he'd found in the house, and decided that he'd pushed his luck far enough.

Too far, as it turned out.

The patrollers were just coming down the street. At this range, they'd have time to dodge any arrow he sent their way, so his only choice was to run, to try to string them out. If he could pick them off a few at a time, he could win this.

It quickly became apparent that he wasn't going to be able to outrun them for long. His body was built for short sprints, not long distance running, even with the constant exercise of walking everywhere for the past few months. He dropped as much of his gear as he could - what use was planning for tomorrow, when he might not survive the next few minutes?

He needed somewhere where he could get a height advantage. Somewhere where he could get the higher ground but they couldn't. Hell, right now he'd settle for something to distract them. Where was a convenient horde of rotters when you needed them?

And just like that, he had his answer.

He put everything he had into getting those few critical steps ahead of his pursuers. Without looking back, he had no way to know if they were shooting at him or not, short of a bullet actually hitting him. But even if they were, there wasn’t much he could do about it, so he just kept running, even when his legs burned and his lungs ached, past the point where he had to slow down. 

He snatched quick glimpses behind, and saw that he’d lost most of the lead he’d had. They were only about 20 feet behind him as he finally ran towards the driveway of a familiar house.

He ran to the gate, shoved and kicked away his reinforcements, and wrenched it open. He stepped back until his back was against the fence, the gate pulled tight against his chest, barricading him almost completely, covering him on three sides.

And letting out his trapped horde of rotters, right into the faces of his pursuers.   
He could see between the slats of the gate as the rotters quickly overwhelmed Loki’s soldiers. Grown fat on purloined food, and complacent from their few, easy battles, they were in no shape to fight off larger numbers, on even ground, in hand to hand combat. First one fell, then another and another.

They retreated, and the rotters followed them, until Clint had room to slither out of his hiding spot. He didn’t stick around to see the inevitable conclusion, but set off down the road. He’d held his own against superior numbers and taken advantage of a mutual enemy.

Truth be told, he was feeling pretty bad ass right now.

The feeling didn’t last long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Kisleth, for constant, consistent cheerleading and butt kicking, and to Corilyn_Winchester, who left one of the most polite, encouraging requests for more chapters that I've ever read.


	19. Cold Nights and Slim Chances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The badass feeling lasted exactly as long as it took for his belly to start feeling empty and the reality of his situation hit home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG, seriously, you guys are the best readers ever! So much love! In return, here's another chapter!

The badass feeling lasted exactly as long as it took for his belly to start feeling empty and the reality of his situation hit home. 

No food, no supplies, no safe base, no territory that he knew. 

He traveled for hours, some on the roads and some spent cutting through neighborhoods and subdivisions, hoping to put Loki’s soldiers off his trail. He didn't have any food with him, and it was far too late in the year to hope for any apples or peaches, so he just ignored the hunger and pushed on until he started losing the light.

Because he'd wanted as many miles between him and Loki's crew as possible, he didn't take the time to clear a house. He did finally find an oak tree with large branches, and decided to call that home for the night.

He'd managed to keep one hank of rope during the fight, and made another harness with the ease of long practice just as the sun sank below the horizon, taking away the little bit of light and heat he'd had left. He put his back against the trunk, to give some protection from the wind. But it wasn't much, and the wind was stronger off of the ground. He spent the night huddling into a tighter ball, tucking his mouth and nose into his shirt so the heat from his breath wouldn't be wasted. That ended up trapping the moisture in, though, so in the end it may not have a good idea.

It was at times like this when his deafness seemed like a blessing instead of the curse others expected it to be. If he'd been able to hear random sounds, he would have been looking for rotters all night. In his current situation, where he was safe from them, and couldn't do anything about a single one, much less a herd, spending time looking for them would just mean exposing his face to the chill wind more than was necessary. 

On top of that, it was the only one of his senses that wasn't tormenting him. He settled a little deeper against the tree trunk and just tried to wait things out. 

Dawn had to come at some point.

By the time it did, he was exhausted, sleep deprived, and barely able to move. He slid and slithered down the tree and stumbled along the road, the chill wind biting into his exposed skin. His mouth was dry and his head was starting to hurt, dehydration setting in, his stomach was cramping from hunger and his legs and arms felt weak. 

He’d need shelter tonight, but that was a worry for the afternoon. Right now, food and water were his priorities. He was finally rewarded later in the morning with a persimmon tree. He ate two of them, then carefully entered the closest house long enough to find a bag to carry them in. The broken front door was a clear indication that it had been looted and emptied of food and other valuables, but he was still able to scavenge some useful items. 

He took the cover off of a couch cushion to use as a bag. He found a hand held can opener which was a treasure. There was also a small blanket, meant for an infant or a toddler, hidden behind the couch. It was barely large enough to cover his torso, but it was thick and fluffy and better than nothing, so he took it. 

One cabinet was full of plastic containers for storing food, and he found two that were water bottles. The hot water heater yielded drinking water, enough to slake his thirst and fill both of his new bottles. A final search under sinks and in dresser drawers gave him a pair of socks that were too small for his feet and a half full jar of vaseline, good for starting fires. 

Heading outside, he loaded more persimmons into his improvised bag along with his new water bottles and continued walking. 

He continued walking through neighborhoods, cutting through backyards, climbing splintered fences and jumping over a small creek at one point.

He stopped early enough to find a house with an attic he could break into. 

The first one was no good, because bats had gotten to it before he did. The stench was eye watering, and since he figured they were probably making a lot of noise, he didn't think it was worth the chance of attracting attention. 

He spent half an hour on the roof, waiting for a wandering herd of rotters to walk past and disappear into the distance (sometimes there were stragglers, so he waited even after they were gone), then ducked behind the house and kept moving through the neighborhood.

He found another house with a porch that gave him access to the roof. He used his rope to make a harness and tied it around the chimney, then swung off the roof and around onto the side of the house, where a window shaped vent gave him an entry point to the attic.

This one wasn't too bad; the insulation was blown cellulose instead of fiberglass, so he made himself a nest in it. There were boxes stored up here, and in one that was full of Christmas decorations he found some towels. There were fishing poles and a box of lures, as well as a bunch of stuff that he couldn’t immediately think of a use for. 

He was losing what little light was left, so he stopped searching through boxes. He ate three of the persimmons and saved the rest for later. A Christmas themed shower curtain covered the vent closest to him, tucked up around the wooden frame on top and held in place with some boxes at the bottom. He used the towels to line the depression he’d made in the insulation and covered himself with the blanket and one last towel. While he still wasn’t warm, he was much less miserable than he’d been the night before, and he managed to get several hours of sleep.

The morning sun came through the vent and woke him. He pushed the door to the attic down enough to see a rotter below, so he gave up on searching the house and left.

He ate a persimmon as he walked down a dusty side road. The sun warmed him, but even while walking he never got hot. The temperatures were dropping quickly and if he didn’t figure something out soon, the cold and hunger would kill him as thoroughly as the rotters. 

The houses on one side gave way to a low, almost decorative wooden fence around what had probably once been a large, green lawn and was now an overgrown field. Eventually he saw an opening in the fence with a large sign, proclaiming a county park. There was a map at the entrance, showing the location of several large pavilions, two playgrounds and two ponds. There were several large lawns, as well as wooded areas. 

He wandered into the park, past one pond, far enough to see that the large enclosed pavilion had burned down, but the smaller ones seemed to be intact. Just like a house, the roof was peaked, but the ceiling over the picnic tables was flat. That meant there was an attic like space, exactly like the spaces he’d been sleeping in, but without the attraction of a house underneath it. 

He walked further into the park. Up a hill, and past the other pond (ducks there, which meant the possibility of eggs, at least in the spring) there was another pavilion, with a large tree close enough that he could use its branches to get into the attic over it. There were metal grills for cooking, a running stream down the hill, fish in the pond (according to the sign which declared that all fishing must be catch and release). 

It wasn’t as good as his first base had been - he had no idea how he was going to keep himself warm in winter - but it was better than anything else he had. He was gambling on settling in a specific location - chances were that no one would go looking for a random house, but anyone local to this area would know of the park. He was counting on the fact that he hadn’t seen any signs of people nearby, and anyone further out might not think that the park had enough to make a long trip worthwhile. 

It was a slim chance, but it was the best one he had.


End file.
